Is haemorrhoidectomy in inflammatory bowel disease harmful? An old dogma re-examined

Haemorrhoidectomy and removal of anal skin tags in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) have been considered to be potentially harmful, but the evidence for this is poor. A review of the literature was undertaken to determine the complications rate after haemorrhoidectomy in patients with IBD.

A Medline, PubMed and Cochrane Library search was performed to retrieve studies reporting the surgical treatment of haemorrhoids in patients with IBD. All studies that investigated the complications of haemorrhoidectomy and skin tag removal in patients with IBD were included. Complications included local sepsis, fissure, ulcer, stenosis, faecal incontinence and the direct need for proctectomy or a stoma.

Eleven retrospective studies including 135 patients were identified. Most series were small and lacked information on the interval between surgery and the onset of complications. The range of complications ranged from 0% to 100%. Taking the studies together, complications occurred more frequently in Crohn's disease (CD) (17.1%) than in ulcerative colitis (UC) (5.5%). The risk of complication was much higher in patients with unknown than in those with known diagnosis of IBD (50% vs 9.8% in CD; 9.1% vs 4% in UC).

There is great variation in the incidence of complications reported after haemorrhoidectomy or removal of skin tags in patients with IBD and it is not possible to draw a firm conclusion. Nevertheless the incidence of complications is high in patients with CD.